Paul Grondahl’s eulogy of Hy Rosen

Hy Rosen in the art studio of his home in Loudonville on Feb. 28, 2006. (Lori Van Buren / Times Union)

We said goodbye to Hy Rosen on Sunday.

You may have read that Hy — the Times Union political cartoonist from 1945 to 1989 — died last week. The TU obituary was written by Paul Grondahl.

(I was a kid fresh out of college when I came to the newspaper in 1988, and by then Hy Rosen was a legend. Always kindly, always unruffled, I’d watch him amble through the newsroom near deadline to deliver his daily art with grace and panache rarely seen in this meat-grinder environment.)

The obit is classic Grondahl: an Albany story infused with history and personality, colorful quotes and a lede that commands you to slow down and take notice.

On Sunday, during Hy’s funeral service at Congregation Ohav Shalom, Paul delivered a eulogy. He followed several speakers — rabbis and family members — who talked of Hy’s childhood and Jewish faith and love and affection for his wife, children and grandchildren.

Paul spoke of Hy’s history from the unique perspective of a newspaperman. I’ve asked his permission to reprint it here. It’s long — this is a Grondahl piece, remember — but slow down and treat yourself to a good story from one newspaperman to another.

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HY ROSEN EULOGY

February 27, 2011
Congregation Ohav Shalom

My name is Paul Grondahl. I’m honored to have been asked to speak to you today by Hy’s family. I am a reporter at the Albany Times Union, where I’ve worked since 1984. I worked alongside Hy for 15 years, until Hy’s retirement from the newspaper in 1989. I knew him as a work colleague and as a friend and I’d like to share a few thoughts with you from that perspective.

We are members of a strange tribe, those of us who work or have worked for the Times Union, a daily newspaper that has published without fail since April 15, 1856. People who have never worked at a newspaper sometimes marvel at what we do, facing relentless deadlines day after day, where failure to produce is not an option. The Times Union has managed to put out a daily edition for 155 consecutive years: through storms and floods and fires, the Civil War, two World Wars, labor strikes, protests and demonstrations, frequent technical challenges, a Great Depression and today’s lingering recession. It’s a remarkable streak, more than a century and a half, and it continues today because of a diverse group of individuals who work more collaboratively than in any other job I can think of and who resemble a great, big dysfunctional family. We embrace the quirks and eccentricities common to creative people.

There is a sense of continuity across the decades and centuries among those of us who keep the flame of the Times Union burning. We share a strong feeling that we are all connected to those who came before and those who will come after. What we do has been called “the first draft of history” and the “daily miracle.” I like to think of it as building a large custom house every day. Each house is different, no two alike, just like each day’s newspaper is a one-of-a-kind product. It will never be precisely replicated.

The Times Union staff builds a new house 365 days a year, year and year out, decade after decade. The construction process is only possible because the specialized tasks completed by those who work there come together as one. In my analogy, we have editorial staffers who serve as foundation pourers, framers, electricians, roofers and finish carpenters. I’ve come to consider my own small contribution, writing human-interest stories, as something akin to the guy on the construction crew who tapes and smoothes the mud to cover the seams after Sheetrock installers have finished their task.

In the house that we have built since 1856 every day at the Times Union, Hy Rosen was our master craftsman. His role was the most highly specialized of all. In my construction analogy, he would be the most deeply respected member of our work crew, the one who created the ornate moldings in the living room or around the grand staircase, those architectural flourishes that cause your jaw to drop when you enter the house. Nobody else at the newspaper could do what Hy did. He was one-of-a-kind in the customized business of putting out a daily newspaper. He was truly an artist. He knew it and we knew it. We don’t go in for false modesty in the news room, a profane and noisy place where tempers can flare but where the camaraderie at its best can feel like sharing a foxhole in combat. Hy was an artist, to be sure. The rest of us were merely laborers.

I can still picture in my mind’s eye Hy’s daily work ritual, which rarely wavered. I had a desk a few paces away from his little glass-walled cubicle, so I had a good view of his artistic process. He came in each day around 3 p.m. It’s worth noting that Hy dressed better than the rest of us, too. He had an artist’s wardrobe and he favored double-breasted sports jackets, colorful designer ties and a fashionable collection of dramatic silk pocket squares. You didn’t see many pocket squares in the newsroom. Hy was a man of great style, sartorial and otherwise. I swear that when he returned suntanned in winter from one of his skiing trips out to Aspen and he walked into the newsroom with one of his snazzy outfits, he bore an uncanny resemblance to the designer Ralph Lauren in those fancy clothing ads in the Sunday New York Times magazine. Hy not only wore snappy clothing, he had that full, thick head of striking silver hair. I was jealous of Hy for perhaps only one thing: his terrific head of hair that was never diminished during his 88 years.

Hy’s work shift started with sketching a draft of his cartoon. He’d been reading the papers, absorbing the day’s news and letting ideas steep in his mind for hours before he came into the office. At that point, he had a rough concept of what he intended to draw. He made some scribbles with a ballpoint pen on a piece of paper and started traversing the newsroom, seeking input. He’d sometimes stop at my desk and show me his draft. “What do you think?” he’d ask. I’d stare dumbly at the bird’s nest of pen scratches, not sure what it was meant to signify. “I’m going to have Cuomo in a Hamlet costume and he’ll be Hamlet on the Hudson, unable to decide if he wants to run for president,” Hy told me. I’d nod in the affirmative and glance at the clock: 4:15 p.m. Less than two hours until deadline. I’d shake my head as Hy shuffled back to his drafting table. No way, I’d think. He’ll never make his deadline. I shouldn’t have doubted. Hy never missed a deadline and he made it look so easy. I never saw him sweat or throw a fit because of the stress. He was an artist and a pro who had learned to produce art on a deadline.

After doing the draft, Hy slid out of his jacket, rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt, loosened his tie, and laid out his pens and brushes with a surgeon’s care on his drafting table. He walked to the bathroom and filled a white porcelain bowl with water from the sink to rinse his brushes. He uncapped his bottles of jet-black India ink. He’d lean in on his stool, hunched over his drafting table and I’d watch his arm and wrist start scratching out patterns. All I could see was the top of his head — that full head of silver hair again, mocking my own receding hairline – as he bobbed and weaved and seemed to be wrestling with his subjects inside their 8 ½ by 11 inch universe.

He could draw like an angel, even if his wit tended more toward the devilish and his language in the newsroom, I dare say, would not be fit for print. As I was grinding on toward the finish line of my story each day, Hy would saunter past my desk, his tie cinched tightly again, his sports coat elegantly unruffled, the pocket square fluffed out to its full effect, and he’d show me his finished cartoon. I remember the look he gave me: twinkling eyes narrowed to a slit, a sly grin creasing his face. He had an impish bearing because he knew he had just slid the knife into the back of some corrupt politician and given it a twist. I stared in awe at how perfectly he had nailed it. His finished cartoon was a small masterpiece, completed in less than two hours from start to finish, the ink not yet dry. I’d just nod my head in amazement each time in our silent exchange. Words weren’t necessary. Brushing shoulders with that sort of grace and talent day after day made me love the work of newspapers. Hy kept up that work routine, faced down his daily deadline, made peace with the unrelenting pressure and did it for 44 years at the Times Union. I calculated he produced more than 10,000 cartoons for the paper. If anything, I figure that number’s a little low.

One of the first things they teach you as a journalist is to be skeptical and to confirm everything with multiple sources. We had an editor who liked to say: If your mother says she loves you, be sure to check it out. And so, because I liked Hy very much and considered him a friend, I have done my due diligence as a journalist and I’ve gotten some other sources.

I reached Bill Kennedy in Miami, where he was doing research and putting the finishing touches on his new novel. Bill and Hy both began their careers at the newspaper’s Beaver Street plant, a legendarily seedy locale that gave rise to Hy’s early cartoon character known as “Beaver Street Benny.” Kennedy told me that he always admired Hy’s artistic ability and his nimble mind. “The quality of his drawing, his knack for comic illustration and his wit were outstanding,” Kennedy said. “His production for all those years was astonishing. I remember he could be a little cranky at times. But if you’ve got that kind of a job, you’ve got a right to be cranky.”

Kennedy reminisced about his favorite Hy Rosen cartoons, which included the one Hy produced after JFK was assassinated that depicted the Statue of Liberty weeping. That cartoon was re-published across the country and internationally. Kennedy’s personal favorite was the oversized cartoon Hy drew of Bill dancing with Meryl Streep in the “Bird Cage” scene from the movie version of “Ironweed.” Hy’s original hangs in Paradiso Ristorante, where that scene was shot for the movie. “Not bad for a couple of bums from Albany,” Hy’s caption read. Bill has another Hy Rosen original at home, which depicts Kennedy riding a donkey wearing a Dan O’Connell-type fedora and leaping over the Capitol building after Kennedy won the Pulitzer Prize.

But Bill was one of Hy’s friends, too. I had to keep checking it out. I needed more sources. After I wrote Hy’s obituary for the Times Union, I received an e-mail from Marie Tenney, an old neighbor of mine when I lived on Morris Street in Albany. She told me a story about visiting a relative who worked for the Times Union at the Sheridan Avenue plant in the 1960s, when she was a teenager. On a tour of the editorial offices, she met Hy Rosen. He sketched out a quick caricature and gave it to Marie. She has saved that cartoon for more than one-half century and she cherishes it to this day.

On Friday morning, I was at the Colonie Library and saw librarian Joe Nash. He had read the obituary and told me about an uncle of his who coached basketball at Cardinal McCloskey High School in the 1950s. Hy had drawn a cartoon of his uncle after a milestone coaching victory and gave it to the coach. Joe said his elderly uncle still has that cartoon hanging in a place of honor above his desk.

Later on Friday, I was talking with one of our senior editors, Mike Spain, who knew Hy well. The two worked together for more than two decades. Mike said that even now, a publication or book publisher calls him nearly every month seeking permission to reprint a Hy Rosen cartoon.

I remember an arts assignment I had about 20 years ago that brought me to the acclaimed Tallix Foundry in Beacon, New York in the lower Hudson Valley. I spoke with world-renowned artists Frank Stella and Helen Frankenthaler, who were working on large-scale sculptures. I turned a corner, just past a multi-million dollar Jeff Koons sculpture being cast, and I saw a familiar head of hair, thick and curly and silver.

Gray Rider Monument (New York State Police)

It was my old colleague and friend, Hy Rosen, who had retired recently from the paper. Hy was working on a larger-than-life cast bronze Gray Rider Monument for the New York State Police. We chatted for a few minutes before I had to move on and finish my interviews. I glanced back and saw Hy hunched over a work bench, a small man who looked comfortable laboring among the giants of contemporary art.

Hy Rosen’s talent was much larger than could be accommodated by his daily cartoon on the editorial pages of our medium-sized newspaper, the Times Union. Hy could not be defined simply as a durable editorial cartoonist with a remarkable record of longevity. He was a true artist. He created cartoons and sculptures and works of art that live on across Albany, the Capital Region and far beyond. You will find Hy Rosen’s monumental sculptures across this city’s squares and parks and public spaces. His original cartoons can be found on restaurant walls, in the living rooms of his subjects, in the private offices of former governors, in the archives of ex-presidents, in the collections of the New York State Library and other institutions.

Every artist hopes to achieve at least some small sliver of immortality. Hy Rosen has left a lasting artistic legacy for the ages in this city and this region that is far more than merely a sliver: his art resides in the branches, the trunk and the roots of our community’s collective consciousness. If I had to come up with a caption to sum up his superlative creative output, it would be this: Not bad for a junkman’s son from the South End of Albany.

I can remember my mum and dad discussing the Hy Rosen cartoons and anxiously waiting until I was old enough to understand what they were talking about. Always a highlight. Thank you to Paul Grondahl who is an area treasure for his words that can so eloquently give his readers insight,compassion and a better understanding of the subject or the person.